It is known, for automatic cleaning of toilet bowls, to attach active-agent preparations in lump form, in a cage-like container, to the inner rim of the toilet bowl. At each flushing operation a portion of the active agent dissolves in the flushing water and is distributed in the bowl together with the water.
The active-agent preparations used are such that on the one hand they can be shaped into dimensionally stable, non-deliquescent blocks, and on the other hand they possess sufficient solubility that a sufficient quantity of active agents is delivered to the water during the brief flushing phase. It is also important that the active-agent block remain unmodified, except for a delivery of scent, after the flushing operation.
DE 34 24 317 A1 contains an example of an active-agent preparation of this kind. The preparation contains anionic and nonionic surfactants, perfume, cellulose powder, rinse-off regulators, inorganic salts, complexing agents, lime-dissolving acids, antimicrobial active agents, plasticizers, and further usual additives.
Single-use toilet rim baskets, which must be disposed of once the active-agent block dissolves completely, are known. Refillable toilet rim blocks, two of which are described in DE 80 01 994 U1 and DE 34 23 758 A1, are likewise known and are more favorable in environmental terms.
The known toilet rim baskets for the reception of lump-form toilet cleaning blocks are ordinarily not usable for pastes or liquid. This is because the paste or liquid must not spontaneously flow or drip out of the rim basket once the flushing operation is complete. In addition, only a defined fraction of the liquid or paste is to be delivered at each flushing operation. This delivered fraction of the active-agent preparation is to be as identical as possible for each flushing operation. Toilet rim baskets of this kind for pasty or liquid preparations are known, for example, from DE 19520145A1 or from EP 1334239B1.
Also known in the existing art are multi-chamber receptacles for the active-agent preparations described above, which are suspended in the toilet bowl in such a way that when the toilet bowl is flushed with water, a delivery of active agent from the toilet rim bowl into the toilet bowl occurs. Depending on the position of the toilet bowl bask on the rim of the toilet bowl, inhomogeneous emptying of the chambers can occur as a result of the inhomogeneous flow conditions inside the flow of flushing water.
A substantial disadvantage of all these toilet rim baskets is that the release of active agent cannot be controlled by the user. A need routinely exists, however, for the user to be able to influence in simple fashion the quantity of active agents, and thus the intensity of the cleaning or scenting performance of a toilet rim bowl.
The object of the present invention is therefore to eliminate the disadvantages presented, and to provide a toilet rim basket in which the quantity of active agents, and thus the intensity of the cleaning or scenting performance of a toilet rim basket, can easily be influenced by a user.
Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.